by Michelle Nunn, CEO, Points of Light Institute and Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

Yesterday I participated at a 50^th Anniversary Peace Corps Symposium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Often, when I tell my family and friends what I am doing that week or where I am travelling, I can see their eyes glaze over. But when I told them about celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Peace Corps, I could sense them light up – “that sounds cool.” The Peace Corps has a kind of glow, a magic. It conveys a visceral sense of idealism and transcendent purpose.

Former Senator Harris Wofford was one of the architects of the original Peace Corps with Sargent Shriver. He spoke yesterday of the unique birth of the Peace Corps. It actually was, in some measure, conceived improvisationally, during a speech at the University of Michigan on Oct. 14, 1960.  It was 2:00 am, after one of the Nixon/Kennedy campaign debates, and Senator Kennedy made an obligatory stop, running hours late, expecting that nobody would still be at the planned rally. Instead, he was greeted by 10,000 students in the street. His speech was less than three minutes long, and this is the passage that became the inspiring image of the Peace Corps. Kennedy said:

“How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past.”

Kennedy asked those students that night to step up and fufill that vision, saying that “unless you comprehend the nature of what is being asked of you, this country can’t possibly move through the next 10 years in a period of relative strength…I come here tonight to ask you to join in the effort…”

Kennedy collapsed in bed after the speech, but the students took that moment of passion, inspiration and creativity and created a petition with 1,000 signatures asking the President to launch a program that called upon the nation’s young people to serve the world.

Senator Kennedy took note and asked Sargent Shriver and others to create a major policy proposal for what was, within 10 days, coined and framed as the Peace Corps. So, as Senator Wofford  recalled, it was really the unique intersection of public leadership, grassroots activism, and engagement that together gave form to this “best face of America.”

I wonder how we can capture the nation and the world’s imagination for other forms of service and for the broader civic movement in the way that the Peace Corps has and continues to do? What is the nexus of leadership, innovation, and activism that can define the next 50 years of international service?

Related Article:

University of Michigan marks 50th anniversary of Peace Corps founding

by , HandsOn Network (with special appreciation to WhatGives?!)

As the staff crusader for social media at HandsOn Network, I’m always looking for ways to demonstrate that an investment in social media can and will result in an increase in volunteer recruitment, retention and/or recognition.

Ever since I read Lessons from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond, I’ve been obsessed with how we might be able to connect our online activity to our off line social action.

Social media marketing strategist Paul Gillin summed up the lessons from Obama report in thirty three seconds the Social Media for Social Good Forum at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service last June.

How are you connecting your online social activity to your organizations mission and goals?

How are you tracking results?

What have you learned so far?

Have you seen a correlation between your online activities in the social space and volunteer mobilization?

Related Posts:

• Joe Rospars on Effective Organizing
• Mobilizing Volunteers with Social Media
• Finding the ROI in Social Media
• 4 Tips for Using Social Media to Mobilize People

Friends,

Several weeks ago, I was privileged to join Points of Light Founder, philanthropist, and UN Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers on a visit to 10 Downing Street to talk with Cabinet Members and key leaders of the new UK coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron.

We talked to them about their aspirations for “The Big Society” - the theme that Prime Minister Cameron has embraced to describe his administration’s goals. As he describes it, his goal is to “build a country defined not by what we consume, but by what we can contribute…a country, a society, where we say, I am not alone. I will play my part. I will work with others to give Britain a brand new start.”

Ray and I talked about the founding of Points of Light and the modern national service movement. In re-telling this story and seeing it through another lens, it was remarkable to reflect upon the growth of volunteers over the last 20 years. Young people are participating at double the rates, and we have 25 million more volunteers participating each year than we did two decades ago. Some of the hallmarks of this success have been extraordinary continuity of Presidential leadership around service, the emergence of a strong and coordinated grass-roots service coalition, the passage of the historic and bipartisan Serve America Act last year, and unprecedented federal investment in national service and civic infrastructure.

During my visit, I was struck in turn by the rich institutional leadership in the UK around volunteer engagement and how much we have to share and learn from one another. And, just as President Obama has launched his Office of Social innovation and Civic Participation, the UK is piloting and experimenting with fascinating new hybrids between business and nonprofits, and with extraordinary, innovative models such as the “social impact bond” to attract private capital to solve deep-rooted problems” and a “Big Society” bank to foster social enterprise and innovation.

Shortly after the London meeting, I attended the annual conference of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City and heard from inspirational political, civic and entertainment figures from around the world.  CGI is an amazing testament to the innovation happening around the globe. We have much to learn from social entrepreneurs who are capturing market dynamics to create social good for those living on $2 a day or less. Business, government, nonprofits, and citizen leaders are working in creative new alliances, enabled by technology and shifting paradigms of organizing, to tackle intrinsic issues.

For example, building off programs underway in Peru and India, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has launched an initiative to provide 100 million clean stoves to the poor throughout the world by 2020, significantly reducing carbon emissions in developing countries and, even more important, the daily exposure to toxic smoke of the women who do most of the cooking.

In a cooperative effort called the Global Road Safety Initiative, seven of the world’s largest car companies, including GM, Ford, Honda, and Toyota, have committed $10 million to address critical road safety issues in parts of Asia and South America, using guidelines developed by the World Bank, World Health Organization, and others.

As a number of us anticipate a gathering around global service this week at the University of Michigan, on the steps where John F. Kennedy first articulated his dream of a Peace Corps, I am struck by the circle of change that wraps us and by the boundless possibilities for a citizen change movement that is global, multi-lateral, and reciprocal.

We can take an online tool such as Ushahidi, created in Kenya to use data entered from cellphones to pinpoint locations of political violence, advance it through virtual participation from volunteers all over the world, and then apply it to identify areas for oil spill response on the Gulf Coast, to locate flood victims or infrastructure breakdowns anywhere.

Further reinforcing the importance of international civic engagement, this week Service World, a broad-based coalition to scale volunteering internationally, launched  OurServiceWorld.org, to provide organizations and individuals with the opportunity to promote the importance of volunteering across borders and to become actively involved.

In a speech at UC-Berkeley this year, President Bill Clinton cited the concept of communitarianism, a form of social responsibility and activism in which private citizens step up to address “the gaps in the social fabric” unfilled by governments. He said it is “the idea that we are in an interdependent world, and we will either make a community of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities, or we will pay the price.”

The possibilities for acting and learning on a global level are all around us. Over the last few days, I participated in IBM’s extraordinary Service Jam, and I corresponded with people from South Africa to Australia. We have an unprecedented opportunity to engage with a network of global change-makers. It is, indeed, a ripe moment to build upon the foundations of the past and possibilities of international service for the future.

In Service,

Michelle Nunn
CEO, Points of Light Institute and Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

by , HandsOn Network (with special appreciation to WhatGives?!)

We continuously strive to recruit, retain and recognize volunteers, right?

So we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to mobilize people to make a difference in our world.

At the National Conference on Volunteering and Service last June, the Social Media for Social Good Forum explored ways nonprofits could use social media to engage people in social change.

During the Q&A period, one participant stood up and asked,

“What shouldn’t we do?”

What a good question!

Here’s a look at how the experts responded.

1. Don’t Treat Social Media Like A Conventional Marketing Channel

Social media marketing strategist Paul Gillin said,

“If you treat social media as another channel, you’re going to blow it.”

Gillin reminded us that social media tools aren’t the same as traditional “one to many” communication channels.  We have to remember that social media create a “many to many” or “any to many” conversation.

Some marketers, Gillin said, see social media as another way to deliver the press release. If that’s what you’re doing, he cautioned, don’t bother.

, who headed up President Obama’s social media strategy and action in 2008, now Founder and Creative Director of Blue State Digital, backed up Gillin’s remarks by reminding us that when we choose staff members or volunteers to serve as the voice of the organization on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, we should choose someone who is “outbound,” someone who is a natural conversationalist that wants to engage with the community of supporters and potential supporters on an ongoing basis.

Organizations should still do conventional marketing, Rospars said, but they shouldn’t take their marketing material and shove it into social media.

2.  Don’t Say “We Need You To Help Us”

Like Scott Heiferman from Meetup.org, Joe Rospars reminded us that people are more interested in being part of a collective than in simply following instructions.

He warned that asking them (the little unimportant people) to help you (the oh, so very important people) can create artificial distance between an organization’s staff, board or leadership and the individual supporters.

Rospar’s, like Heiferman, suggested that it’s more effective to say, “Let’s…”

3. Don’t Waste People’s Time

Joe Rospars also reminded us to be careful not to flood social streams with our content, but rather to carefully calibrate what we say, where we say it and when.

I’ve heard Twitter compared to a business cocktail party and Facebook likened to a neighborhood block party or backyard BBQ.

As the party analogy suggests, the type of conversation varies in each space and organizations need to be aware of and in tune with that.

4. Lead By Example

Co-founder and Chairman of , reminded us of a key tenant of Servant Leadership – to set the standard by your own willingness to do what you are asking others to do.

In this context, I took his words to mean that we should be the kind of engaged online citizen we wish our fans and followers to be.

5.  Follow the Lead of Those Following You

Dorsey talked about handing the keys to our nonprofit social media accounts over to the young people that support our organizations or causes.

I imagine this might just be the hardest piece of advice for nonprofits to swallow.

Hand over the keys? Give up control?

If we can’t get as far as handing over the organizational voice to a volunteer leader, we can, at minimum, take our cues on how to behave in the social space from our own fans and followers being mindful of their ideas, contributions, leadership and voice.

Related Posts:

• Joe Rospars on Effective Organizing
• Mobilizing Volunteers with Social Media
• Finding the ROI in Social Media
• 4 Tips for Using Social Media to Mobilize People